I'm now officially enrolled as a part-time PhD student at Southampton.

So I'm going to cheat and ask 2 questions:

1. Any advice for us newbies?
2. What software would you recommend for us to use?

Any clues appreciated.:-)

This should help answer question 1
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=10400

Depends on your area of research. Most people use Office/Open Office/LaTeX for writing their thesis but beyond that there is a whole world of software out there.